THE ROAD TO WORMS So back again to the labor for the Cause. Events were marching. At Worms, the old Rhenish city, the Diet had met, and young Emperor Charles and his princes were deliberating upon all the complex affairs of the Holy Roman Empire. To Worms came two Papal nuncios in their red and purple, Monsignori Caracciolo and Aleander, with many demands from their Medici master, but chiefly requiring one great “Christian act,” the surrender to condign punishment of the new “monster,” “Arius,” “Mahomet,” whose other appellation was Martin Luther. Already Charles with his Flemish and Spanish advisers had shown their hands. In the Low Countries where he ruled in person, bonfires of the heretical books were blazing. But when Aleander came with his request, objection met him. Before election Charles had made solemn promise that no German should be laid under the “ban” without a fair hearing, and who had tried Luther? The bland legate replied that “to the Pope belonged the condemnation of heretics, and if _his_ paternal mercy were satisfied, Holy Saints! would Cæsar and his princes appear more hard to please than the Pope?” The Emperor, however, was scarce convinced. He had, besides, other questions to ask the reverend legates. Would the Pope confirm him in the entire control of that most convenient engine of political tyranny, the Inquisition in Spain? Would the Pope waive his claims to Ferrara? Would he aid Charles in the threatened war with France? Till these were answered the Emperor had no final decision as to Luther, and besides, with one voice was not Germany,--peasants, burghers, and ritters,--making itself heard; from the white Alps to the blue Baltic, the great cry sounding,--“Let not Luther perish without fair trial!” And Charles was no such fool as to be deaf to that cry. As for me, each time I returned to Wittenberg after riding post, I would be mightily refreshed by the calm and cheer I found in the little city. The much discussed friar was still moving about his university routine. I can picture him touching his lute in the evenings, or walking by morn in the wintry weather beside the ice-girt Elbe. Friends and students went ever in and out the modest convent. News good and bad was always discussed with the uttermost freedom. “I am very happy to-day,” he said once to a group of us, frowning over some heavy news; “surely God is bringing us very near to victory, or the Fiend would not find it needful to rage so horribly.” Then in the long winter evenings I can see again his great quill flying over the paper at a new polemic, and the next morning the Wittenberg printers would be clanging their presses with redoubled fury.